A blog about math, philosophy, puzzles, politics, and more.
A couple weeks ago, the LessWrong team threw a 400-person festival called LessOnline for rationalist-adjacent bloggers and their readers. The festival featured a puzzle hunt, which I helped write! The puzzle hunt had two rounds with a somewhat unusual structure: all participants who completed the first round were thrown onto one team to solve the … Continue reading My puzzles for the 2024 LessOnline puzzle hunt
This is a re-post of a puzzle I wrote for the 2021 Mathcamp Puzzle Hunt. The difficulty is 5/10 or so (easier than the first puzzle I wrote for this blog, but harder than the second). If you haven’t done these sorts of puzzles before, I recommend starting with e.g. this one or this one … Continue reading Puzzle: A More Earthly Calendar
Constrained writing is fun; moreover, sometimes it's seriously impressive. This post is a tour of some of my favorite examples of constrained writing and wordplay. Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames Listen to this recitation of the French poem Un petit d'un petit, by Luis d'Antin van Rooten. https://youtu.be/b7qiVtVkqDg&start=20&end=38 Sound familiar? Indeed, this poem is a homophonic … Continue reading Lexeme jest: Eleven excellent genres
Like most social events, puzzle hunts are much better in person. That said, the creators of this year's Mystery Hunt really delivered, creating a hunt that was as good as it could have been under the circumstances.
In September I published a puzzle called Losers and Winners. At least five people solved the puzzle (unlike my first puzzle, which no one solved without hints). Here are a few hints, in white text, meant to be read in order.
In May I wrote my first puzzle for this blog. If you tried that puzzle but didn't solve it, don't worry -- that was a really hard one. This one's easier -- I'd put its difficulty at around 3 out of 10. If you haven't done these sorts of puzzles before, this isn't a terrible … Continue reading Puzzle: Losers and Winners
In May I published a puzzle called A Choral Arrangement. No one ended up solving it without additional hints, and so none of the prizes were claimed! I admit that this was disappointing; I knew the puzzle was hard, but expected at least one person to solve it. For those of you who worked on … Continue reading Puzzle solution/hints: A Choral Arrangement
A few months ago I wrote about my favorite puzzles from the 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt, where I called the Mystery Hunt "one of my favorite things". Another one of my favorite things is actually writing these kinds of puzzles. I intend to occasionally post puzzles on this blog, and this is the first one! … Continue reading Puzzle: A Choral Arrangement
(Warning: the comments on this post contain spoilers!) Chris the Criminal flips a fair coin. If it comes up heads he commits a crime. If it comes up tails, he doesn't. Now, Chris is being tried before a jury of n people (n is at least 2). The jury members all know the process by … Continue reading Chris the Criminal: A mathematical puzzle
[Content warning: spoilers for the 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt. With one exception, the spoilers are in footnotes (unless you have a broad conception of what constitutes a spoiler).] There are many things in this world. In order for something to be one of my favorite things, I need to like it quite a lot. It's … Continue reading My favorite puzzles from the 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt
Unexpected Values 